NATO's Bleak Future

JAMES H. WYLLIE

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),
the modern world's most enduring and successful military alliance, was
founded in 1949. Its core task was to stop something from happening, and
it accomplished that task remarkably well for an alliance of originally
12, and later 16, states. For 40 years NATO deterred the military advance
of Soviet communism across West Europe. By providing military security
NATO facilitated the economic developments that inhibited the political
advance of Soviet communism beyond those unfortunate lands in Europe upon
which Stalin imposed his ideology in the aftermath of the Second World
War.

NATO fought and won the Cold War, and validated the concept of collective
defense. Whatever disagreements member states may have had over other issues
were relegated below the overarching common interest in defense against
the common enemy. The success of NATO stands in stark contrast to the failures
and immobilization of collective security, the exemplars in modern times
being the League of Nations and the United Nations. Collective security,
as an alternative to alliance, posits the notion that each state shares
responsibility for each other state's security.[1] All are supposed to
act together and take joint action against any aggressive behavior by any
other members. The collective interests of all states ought to be protected
against the narrow self-interests of one. But in practice such a worthy
concept is found to be wanting. Not all states will agree on what constitutes
aggression, or who is the culpable aggressor. How, where, and when action
should be taken and who should bear the cost can immobilize decisionmaking
and put great strain on goodwill. Examples of effective collective security
are rare, and usually only very temporary, for instance the UN coalition
in the Gulf in 1990-91.

The central fallacy of collective security is that it expects a state's
desire to see others protected against any aggression to be as strong as
its desire to protect itself. For 40 years NATO avoided this trap by having
a limited number of members, in a limited geographical area, bound together
in the face of a clear and present danger. This is not to argue that collective
defense is easy. As in any association of free, sovereign states, disagreements
occur. There were strains, often deep, over out-of-area problems, burden-sharing,
alliance nuclear strategy, and détente. However, the sense of common
purpose inherent in collective defense managed to overcome the natural
strains, and NATO prevailed.

In the contemporary world there is no common threat to bind the members,
yet NATO has decided to enlarge. At the July 1997 Madrid summit, invitations
were issued to Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to join NATO in
1999. The rationale underpinning enlargement has been subject to much debate
and argument, but it remains unclear why NATO is choosing to expand into
East Europe. It seems to be part of the search for a raison d'être.
Together with vague notions of crisis management, peacekeeping, and peace-enforcement
roles for NATO, there are claims that enlargement may be seen as a way
to reinforce democracy in East Europe, or as a consolation prize for the
shameful delay in granting membership to the European Union. Some analysts
suggest that enlargement is essentially the consequence of US domestic
politics. The coincidence of a clutch of influential high-policy makers
of East European ethnic origin in the Clinton Administration with the need
to secure the votes of Polish-Americans and others of East European stock
may have persuaded the White House to reverse its antipathy to NATO enlargement
midway through its first term when it was in deep political trouble.[2]
There is no doubt that it has been the United States that has driven the
enlargement process forward since 1994, with NATO Europe in a compliant
role.[3]

Nonetheless, fascinating and perplexing though they may be, the diverse
and uncertain motivations for enlargement are now of secondary importance;
it is some of the unintended consequences that are of primary significance
and constitute grounds for deep anxiety about the future security of Europe.
In a flurry of diplomatic activity in the spring and summer of 1997, a
number of key decisions were made. Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic
are to become NATO members by 1999. Many others who wished to have the
advantages of membership are not to be members for some time, if ever at
all. The Baltic Republics, Romania, Slovenia, and Slovakia are prominent
among those disappointed. It could be argued that in traditional security
terms, those most in need were denied membership while those least in need
were granted NATO protection.

To appease the Russian sense of betrayal and threat, the NATO-Russia
Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation, and Security was agreed
a few weeks before the Madrid summit. This grants Russia a permanent mission
at ambassadorial level at NATO headquarters and a Permanent Joint Council
(PJC) meeting frequently at the highest levels to consider matters of common
interest. At Madrid a NATO-Ukraine Charter was also agreed. This allows
a Ukrainian mission at ambassadorial level at NATO headquarters, and provides
a commitment to meet at least twice a year at North Atlantic Council level.
The final, major development was the creation of the European-Atlantic
Partnership Council. This comprises delegations from NATO and all the "Partnership
for Peace" states, and replaces the North Atlantic Cooperation Council
founded as a link between NATO and the rest of Europe in 1991. This forum
has more than 40 members, discusses matters of common security interest,
and may be expected to validate NATO crisis management and humanitarian
missions outside the NATO treaty area. It meets monthly at ambassadorial
level.[4]

Debilitating Consequences

The decision to enlarge, and the related political developments, constitute
a mammoth mistake. George Kennan has described it as "the most fateful
error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era."[5] The
new NATO is smitten with crucial weaknesses. Decisionmaking was never easy
in a NATO of 12, 15, and then 16 members during the Cold War. Soon NATO
will have 19 members, and in a non-Cold War environment consensus will
be even more difficult to achieve. The general assumption is that NATO
can limit membership to 19 for some time after 1999, and it is reasonable
to argue that other East European aspirants can be kept at arm's length.
However, there are other European democracies which may feel, at any time,
a need to be part of the new, large NATO club. It is not difficult to imagine
Austria, Sweden, or Finland applying at short notice to join NATO. NATO
could easily find itself early in the new century with 21 or 22 members
even before the thorny issues of the membership of the Baltic Republics,
Slovakia, Romania, and Slovenia are tackled.

An unwieldy NATO decisionmaking process will now be further deeply compromised
by Russia and the Permanent Joint Council. The Founding Act obliges NATO
"to consult and strive to cooperate to the broadest possible degree"[6]
with Russia in the PJC on all issues of common interest. Section III of
the act details the topics demanding consultation, and it is difficult
to identify any significant item of NATO business which has been excluded.
The PJC will meet monthly at ambassadorial and military representative
levels. There will also be regular meetings at the levels of the chiefs
of staff and other experts. The PJC must meet at least twice a year at
both the foreign minister and defense minister levels.[7] These arrangements
bring Russia into the heart of NATO decisionmaking.

In theory Russia cannot exercise a veto over NATO decisions, but in
political practice Russia is bound to wield considerable influence over
the new, enlarged alliance when NATO is obliged to discuss any controversial
decision with Russia, on site, at NATO headquarters. Henry Kissinger argues
that "at a minimum, Russia will have succeeded in injecting itself
into NATO deliberations in a way bound to complicate purposeful Alliance
action."[8] He foresees a "Never-Never Land" of NATO decisionmaking,
where an enlarged North Atlantic Council, the PJC, the Ukrainian mission,
and the European-Atlantic Partnership Council jostle for power. This jumble
creates the prospect of European cohorts working against long-feared US-Russian
condominium, or Russia playing off some Europeans against others or the
United States, or France supporting Russia against American dominance within
the Alliance or behavior out-of-area. The likelihood of consensus on big
Alliance or wider European security-related issues is low, as demonstrated
by the divergent postures of France and Russia from those of the United
States and Britain over the Persian Gulf crisis of early 1998.[9]

Another debilitating consequence of NATO enlargement is the steady transformation
of NATO from collective defense toward collective security. The larger
NATO becomes, the greater the area it covers; and the more that the European-Atlantic
Partnership Council is promoted, the more that NATO comes to resemble collective
security organizations such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE). A grave weakness arising from these circumstances is
the dilution of the power of the United States to persuade and lead a cohesive
alliance. The relegation of American influence in European security by
making the Alliance answerable to OSCE has been a long-term objective of
some Russian foreign policy makers. By default, NATO enlargement has delivered
a variation of this foreign policy objective. Some Russian foreign policy
makers, probably including President Yeltsin, do not appreciate what is
happening and see NATO enlargement largely in terms of a threat to Russian
interests. Others with greater experience in foreign affairs and deeper
political sophistication--including most probably new Prime Minister Yevgeny
Primakov, who previously was Foreign Minister, and most certainly his predecessor
as Foreign Minister, Andrei Kozyrev--must appreciate the irony of NATO
enlargement weakening the Alliance.

Kozyrev made his preference for a post-Cold War collective security
model for European security plain in two high-profile articles published
in the West in 1994 and 1995. In 1994 Kozyrev argued, "It was the
democratic principles of the 56-member CSCE that won the Cold War--not
the NATO military machine. The CSCE should have the central role in transforming
the post-confrontational system of Euro-Atlantic cooperation into a truly
stable, democratic regime."[10] A year later, in the light of NATO's
announcement of its intention to enlarge, then-Foreign Minister Kozyrev
was arguing that NATO should transform itself into a pan-European organization
with a permanent consultative body of which Russia would be a leading member.[11]

Nevertheless, among even the more sophisticated Russian foreign policy
makers, pride has been deeply hurt by NATO enlargement. For many, the internal
damage NATO is doing to itself does not compensate for the betrayal and
humiliation inflicted upon Russia by NATO's move toward the east. There
is a genuine perception that President Bush promised President Gorbachev
that NATO would not take the place of the Warsaw Treaty Organization in
much of East Europe, and with the Cold War over NATO's purpose would be
in serious doubt.[12] President Gorbachev used this to convince the Soviet
generals that rapid military withdrawal would not bring grave strategic
disadvantages. The continuance of NATO and its enlargement is seen as a
double breach of promise. This sense of grievance is compounded by the
abandonment by the Clinton Administration of the much-vaunted US-Russian
strategic partnership in 1994 and its replacement by a foreign policy resembling
traditional balance-of-power realism. In Moscow, politicians of all hues
feel that Russia has received scant strategic reward for the remarkably
peaceful and cost-free winding down of the Cold War. On the contrary, NATO
has attempted to exploit Russian compliance to NATO's strategic advantage.
The fact that NATO has, from the perspective of its interest, politically
mishandled this double-dealing does not remove the sense of resentment
felt in Russia.

In response to setbacks in the European theater, Russia is seeking compensation
elsewhere. Reasserting influence in the Newly Independent States to the
south and recovering a leading role in the traditional Middle East are
seen as ways to assert Russia's great power status and deny the United
States a free hand in this region as in Europe. Since 1993 Russia has,
with some success, used the military instrument in the Georgian civil war,
the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, and the Tajikistan civil war to shape
governments and local policies to address Moscow's interests.[13] Russian
diplomacy has also been very active in the Middle East, driven by former
Foreign Minister and now Prime Minister Primakov, who was a Middle East
expert in the final Soviet administration. Courting Iran with nuclear technology,
advanced weapons sales, and moral support against the United States has
been a major feature of the new Russian foreign policy in the region. Sympathy
and understanding for Saddam Hussein and the renewal of old fraternal links
with Libya and Syria are also notable features of this foreign policy offensive.
Trade links, recovery of old debts from the Soviet era, arms sales, and,
not least, posing a challenge to American hegemony motivate these policies.[14]
Given NATO's realpolitik in Europe, Moscow feels no compunction about pursuing
Russian national interests throughout the "greater" Middle East
from the Caspian Sea to the Sahara desert.

Not allowing the United States a free hand in south and southwest Asia
is also a strategic interest of China. The more stretched the United States
is in the Middle East, the less energy and fewer capabilities it will have
in the Asia-Pacific region. Future access to Gulf oil and other trade links
are also of interest to China.[15] Spurned by the United States as a strategic
partner, Russia is considering China, and a pragmatic entente is under
way. Mutual interests in oil, securing borders vulnerable to militant Islam
in southwest Asia, arms sales, trade links, and a common front against
a rampant Pax Americana are the bases of a Moscow-Peking axis. In April
1997 President Jiang Zemin visited Moscow, and both he and President Yeltsin
spoke of a "strategic partnership."[16] At the Sino-Russian summit
in Beijing in November 1997, the political rhetoric proclaimed a "constructive
partnership" between the two great powers.[17]

Regardless of all the institutional changes and the related international
political developments set in train by the decisions of 1997, the core
question about NATO persists: What is the strategic purpose of the new,
enlarged NATO? Beyond grand rhetoric, NATO's key business and how it hopes
to accomplish it remain obscure. Great store is being put into some kind
of crisis management or peacekeeping role outside the territory of the
Allies, but such business would normally be assumed to fall under the purview
of a collective security organization such as OSCE and, anyway, is not
the kind of business which requires an alliance of 19 members. Indeed,
the use of large alliances for such measures often impedes action as consensus
is difficult to achieve. When consensus is achieved it is often at a level
of the lowest common denominator, after considerable time has elapsed,
and the new circumstances are far removed from those when the crisis broke.[18]
NATO's ability to respond to, and its role in, the Balkan wars of 1991-96,
the bickering within the Alliance over the forces implementing the Dayton
Accords, and the early responses to the 1998 Kosovo crisis all seem to
bear out such misgivings.

Peace enforcement in Bosnia has been lauded as a demonstration of NATO
success, but rather it reveals its limitations. NATO was not the decisionmaker,
it was the tool of policies eventually cobbled together outside NATO. It
could operate only after the great powers reached minimum agreement, and
after the unilateral decision of the United States to give military assistance
to the Croats and to sanction NATO bombing against the Bosnian Serbs. The
Dayton Accords bear no resemblance to pre-war political arrangements. The
US commitment to Dayton has been and is grudging, and the rest of Europe
appears unwilling to contribute unless the Americans stay in a major way.[19]
The whole Dayton exercise is predicated on Russian support and a Russian
presence on the ground. For the NATO powers, on top of other defense commitments,
such deployments are claimed to be a strain on defense capabilities. It
is sobering to ponder that if NATO is stretched, militarily and politically,
over Bosnia, then the likely role NATO could have in crises and conflicts
further afield than Bosnia--for instance Moldova and Ukraine--is far from
clear. In all probability, in any extra-NATO crisis around the Black Sea
or the Caspian, Russia would claim local great power rights of dominant
influence and use the Permanent Joint Council to block NATO intervention--in
the unlikely event that the North Atlantic Council could agree on specific
policy initiatives. To hang together effectively, large, expensive alliances
need to be built upon grand but clear strategic purposes. Rapid, relevant
responses to civil wars and societal breakdowns in areas of peripheral
strategic importance for continental security are best left to limited,
ad hoc coalitions of interested and well-motivated states.

Contrary Objectives

In the post-Cold War era NATO ought to have been content with quietly
and modestly sustaining a zone of peace within the NATO area. It should
have accepted a low-profile, secondary role in world affairs, and concentrated
on reconciling the differences between the big powers among the current
members within its limited geographical focus. A 16-member NATO ought to
have played to the classical strengths of alliances and avoided the weaknesses
inherent in expanded membership and entrenched institutionalism. During
the Cold War the overriding common interest in deterring the Soviet threat
maintained Alliance harmony, more or less, but now the major powers have
various, often contrary, objectives driving their support for NATO.

. For the United States, NATO is now of value as
an element of "Atlantic security." In the predominant Washington
perspective, "Atlantic security" means American security interests
on the eastern side of the Atlantic from the Barents Sea to the Indian
Ocean. There may still be two commands covering this region--European Command
and Central Command--but conceptually it is viewed as a strategic unit.
It is clear that the Middle East is the area of strategic priority for
Washington, for reasons of the Arab-Israeli peace process and Gulf security.
Since the end of the Cold War the security of Europe has fallen below that
of the Middle East as a matter of American strategic priorities, but NATO
Europe remains important, inter alia, as the area contiguous to the Middle
East and as a vehicle to assist the United States in its efforts to bring
peace and stability to this volatile but crucial part of the world.

Through the 1990s Cold War arguments of burden-sharing within NATO have
declined, though elements remain over the NATO force in Bosnia. However,
the notion of "responsibility sharing" has grown.[20] NATO Europe
is much closer and more vulnerable to the insecurities of the Middle East
than is North America. NATO Europe depends more upon Gulf oil than does
the United States, and European cities would be much more vulnerable to
weapons of mass destruction acquired by "rogue" states than those
of North America. There is a distinct and profound mood in Washington,
especially in the US Congress, that NATO Europe should shoulder more of
the responsibility for Middle East security by, first of all, being more
supportive of American policies. Increasingly the value of NATO to the
United States is being measured in such terms, and the clear reluctance
of many major continental European NATO members, such as France and Italy,
to support US strategic policies on containing Libya, Iran, and Iraq is
posing a threat to the American commitment to NATO.

. One European country alert to these problems
is Britain. It is a British strategic priority to sustain NATO as the primary
European security institution.[21] To achieve this, British governments,
of whatever political persuasion, know that American commitment and leadership
are essential. Consequently Britain takes "responsibility sharing"
very seriously, and backing the United States in the Gulf becomes a critical
component of British European security policy. NATO is now important to
Britain essentially as a political device to prevent the emergence of a
seriously competitive, integrated, European defense organization. The Anglo-American
defense "special relationship" addresses this NATO objective
and, as a plank of British foreign policy valued in its own right, is served
by the vitality of NATO.

. France, on the other hand, does not view NATO
so benignly. Between 1990 and 1993 defense spending cuts across West Europe,
economic recession, the political problems of the Maastricht Treaty ratification
process, and the lamentable failure of the European Union in the Balkan
wars, all thwarted French efforts to establish a Paris-led European defense
organization to challenge NATO. From 1993, unable to challenge NATO from
the outside, France decided to challenge it from the inside. As one notable
French commentator remarked, "In order to be more European tomorrow
it is necessary to be more Atlanticist today."[22] Consequently France
has moved back toward NATO's integrated military command structure, for
instance, with frequent participation in NATO's Military Committee and
Defence Policy Committee, from which it had distanced itself since 1966.
France is now intent on "reforming" NATO in such a manner as
to diminish the role of the United States and overtly "Europeanize"
the Alliance.

Presently it is French policy to relegate the military roles of the
Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and the Defence Policy Committee,
and to elevate the political role of the North Atlantic Council.[23] France
is pressing for a European commanding officer for Allied Forces South in
Naples, which always has been commanded by an American. France also argues
for a substantive command role for the West European Union in the activities
of the new NATO Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF). Paris does not want any
CJTF subject to the overall command of SACEUR, who is an American general.
The uneasy compromise at present is that the West European Union may have
a command role of NATO assets in a CJTF in the event of humanitarian or
peacekeeping operations; if combat takes place, SACEUR would be in command.
For France, it is clear that NATO is primarily of value insofar as it serves
as a route to a distinct European security and defense identity linked
to but not controlled by the United States.

. For Germany, NATO constitutes a conundrum, one
among many that make up its uncertain, brittle foreign policy and defense
policy postures. Germany is faced by a range of foreign policy options,
some of which are contradictory.[24] However, it appears unwilling to make
any choices or to acknowledge that the Cold War is over and its foreign
and defense policies can no longer be made in response to it. For 40 years
the raison d'être of NATO and the Federal Republic of Germany were
more or less the same thing. The Inner German Border between West and East
Germany was the central front of NATO and the fault line between two ideological
blocs. All that was required of the Federal Republic was to be a willing
host for large NATO armies and to a keep a low and noncontroversial political
profile. Today Germany can no longer remain a front-line beneficiary of
multilateral security. With its increased size and capability it is now
a considerable potential provider of security. There are natural expectations
that the largest sovereign country in Europe west of Russia, with the world's
third strongest economy, will make some meaningful contribution to the
stability and security of the continent from which it draws so much of
its prosperity. Additionally, the incorporation of East Germany has altered
the strategic orientation of Germany. East Europe is of much greater significance
to German politics and economics than at any time since 1945. The importance
of the West is in relative decline.

In this context NATO's enlargement to the east may be viewed as valuable
to Germany. But is it really valuable if it creates Russian resentment
and hostility, or even leads to the dilution of NATO as an effective defense
organization? It is in Germany's fundamental strategic interest to reach
a modus vivendi with Russia over East Europe, and NATO enlargement
may not have been the best way to go about it. If it does prove to have
been a mistake, should Germany construct a separate strategic agreement
with Russia? However, while being drawn one way or another toward the East,
Germany seems to be pursuing an incompatible policy in the West. A deepening
of European Union integration, particularly economic and monetary union,
and a strategic axis with France raise profound obstacles to European Union
enlargement to the east. With the Cold War over, legitimate questions may
be raised over the continued strategic compatibility of France and Germany.
Their respective views on the nature of a future European political union,
on the relative strategic importance of East Europe compared to southern
Europe and North Africa, and on the strategic utility of nuclear weapons
are different and hardly constitute a firm foundation for a cohesive, integrated
West European actor on the global stage.

Then, within Germany, there is still considerable sympathy for some
kind of "Switzerlandization"; a Germany that would be a friendly,
trading, "civilianized" power, committed only to self-defense.
This kind of Germany would eschew the projection of military force beyond
its borders and rely on moral, political, and economic influence to address
vital foreign policy goals. Costs and difficulties are associated with
all these options, but nearly ten years after the Cold War has ended Germany
has yet to decide which course to follow. To follow elements of all for
too long will bring the benefits of none, and diminish German credibility
as a major power. The NATO choice is but one among many, and it no longer
has the automatic priority of the Cold War years.

This condition looks set to continue despite the election of a new German
government at the end of September 1998. After 16 years the conservative-liberal
coalition led by Helmut Kohl has given way to a likely coalition between
the large SPD (Social Democrats) and the small Green Party. Chancellor-elect
Schroder has committed the new "red-green" coalition to "foreign
policy continuity." In the short term this implies continued German
support for NATO enlargement, European integration, and peacekeeping in
the Balkans when mandated by the UN Security Council. However, over the
longer term the new German government will find it increasingly difficult
to sustain the precarious balance between the Franco-German axis driving
European Union business and the traditional Atlanticism dominant in matters
of European security. The return of the capital to Berlin next year will
elevate eastern interests in German politics and complicate already tense
relations with France over European Union matters such as budget and Common
Agricultural Policy reforms, and with the Anglo-Saxon states over security
issues in east and southeast Europe. Nevertheless, domestic issues such
as labor, social security, and pension reforms have been publicly accorded
priority, ahead of foreign and defense policies. NATO membership will not
be in question, but most of the party managers and the rank and file of
the SPD-Green coalition have little empathy for a vigorous German role
in the Alliance. A pragmatic, low-profile role for Germany in NATO decisionmaking,
supporting a line of least risk and cost, looks most likely. On big questions
of European security, the United States will probably encounter an increasingly
"civilianized," insular giant at the heart of the continent.

Prospects

NATO's future is as a declining collective defense organization succumbing
to the political pressures and temptations of collective security. A formal
membership of at least 19, and the legitimization of deep Russian penetration
into the heart of NATO affairs, will jeopardize effective NATO decisionmaking.
Alliance harmony is further compromised by the absence of an overarching
common interest. The major powers that drive NATO have different or uncertain
priorities governing their continued loyalty. A worst-case scenario for
NATO early in the next century is that of a large, wallowing "blancmange"
type of organization, with 24 or so members and a host of imported East
European problems. A better but hardly attractive scenario is of a creaking
organization of 19 members, deterred from projecting security over the
Baltics or the Balkans. Russia, half in and half out, has opportunities
to disrupt NATO decisionmaking and exert influence over East European states
excluded from NATO membership.

NATO should not have agreed to enlarge, but it did. It would be comforting
to suggest that something can be salvaged from the approaching pile-up,
but it is difficult to see what. There is a real danger of the traditional
collective defense function of a zone of peace in West Europe being undermined
and obscured by the lack of strategic focus and convoluted decisionmaking
machinery. NATO's future is not as a coherent, vibrant, robust collective
defense organization with a lucid, high objective and related strategy.
It looks set to become a loose political association within which ad hoc,
shifting coalitions will compete over a variety of issues not commensurate
with the security of all the members.

NOTES

1. See E. H. Fedder, "The Concept of Alliance," International
Studies Quarterly, 12 (March 1968), for a succinct and lucid exposition
on the timeless distinctions between collective defense and collective
security.

2. For consideration of this view, see James Goldgeier, "NATO Expansion:
The Anatomy of a Decision," Washington Quarterly, 21 (Winter
1998), 54-55.

James H. Wyllie is senior lecturer in international relations and director
of the post-graduate strategic studies program at the University of Aberdeen,
Scotland. Formerly a research officer in the Defence Intelligence Staff,
Ministry of Defence, London, he has also been a faculty member of the Universities
of Durham and East Anglia. His publications include The Influence of
British Arms (1984), European Security in the Nuclear Age (1986),
and European Security in the New Political Environment (1997). Between
1992 and 1997 he wrote more than 40 articles on Middle East security for
Jane's Intelligence Review. Currently he is completing a book on
the condition of contemporary Middle East security.